Sustainable food & ag list-servs have been sputtering for the past few days over the news that the Barack Obama campaign was apparently considering asking a Republican, Ann Veneman — executive director of the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF — to be his vice-presidential running mate. (Politico.com was the happy recipient of the leak trial balloon.) Not because of her GOP affiliation, but because she was the secretary of agriculture in Bush’s first term.

Big, volunteer-powered projects like the Victory Garden have the potential to unleash a wave of human energy. I could feel this energy during the event — there’s a desire to make things happen.

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and America’s obesity epidemic is very much on his mind, says Alice Waters, the original SOLE sister and founder of Chez Panisse, in this video from the Aspen Ideas Festival. (Thanks, Cookie Jill!)
“We have to talk about food as a right and not a privilege,” says […]

An environmental lawyer for 20 years, including four spent with the USDA, Claire Hope Cummings reports regularly on agriculture and the environment; she has also farmed in California and in Vietnam. She chatted recently with the Ethicurean about her new book, “Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds.”

Yesterday Michael Pollan — who, whether he likes it or not is the most widely read spokesperson for the sustainable food movement — sent an email to his list-serv (subscribe here) with his thoughts on the 2008 Farm Bill that finally passed. In short, he thinks that despite the highest levels of activism in a generation, it is “not a very good bill.”

Ari LeVaux sent us a link to his May 29 column for the Missoula Independent, Flash in the Pan, in which he interviewed Barack Obama over email about food and agriculture policy.

Breaking news and developments, such as contaminated-food outbreaks, Farm Bill milestones, and how the farming community is doing around the world.

The event last night in Vacaville with Michael Pollan went really well, I think. About 300 people showed up. I was able to ask most of my questions, many of yours, and quite a few of the audience’s. Most importantly, I didn’t trip, fall out of my chair, or spill my (ahem, bottled) water […]

On Thursday I’ll be interviewing Michael Pollan about his latest book, “In Defense of Food,” on stage in Vacaville, CA, as part of a fundraiser for Slow Food Solano and the Solano County Library Foundation. It will be followed by an audience Q&A and a book signing by Pollan.

Michael Pollan came to Canada — almost.
The promotional tour for his new book "In Defense of Food" landed him an interview on CBC Radio’s The Current (listen to the interview here) this past Wednesday, January 9th. He wasn’t actually in Canada — he broadcast his bit from the CBC studios in New York while […]

In-depth, offbeat, or thought-provoking features about aspects of SOLE food, from eating locally to farms marketing to methods of food preservation.

Michael Pollan is touring extensively for “In Defense of Food,” appearing at bookstores and lecture halls all over the country.

There’s a full crop of reviews of “In Defense of Food,” and an interview with Pollan about it on NPR. Here are the raves and the contrarians, movie-marquee style: “A tough, witty, cogent rebuttal to the proposition that food can be reduced to its nutritional components without the loss of something essential.” — New York Times”Pollan isn’t just asking us to consider changing the way we eat. He’s asking us to join a movement that’s “renovating our food system in the name of health’” — L.A. Times”If you read one book about food this year,” this should be it —The Portland Mercury”Pollan lays bare with impassioned but clear-eyed intelligence the sinister machinations of the contemporary American food industry” — New York Post”[The food movement] couldn’t pray for a better mouthpiece” — Plenty”Page for page, it contains more intellectual and moral nutrition than practically any other book I’m aware of.”

Q&A with Phil Howard, assistant professor of community, agriculture, recreation and resource studies at Michigan State University, about the impact of consolidation in the organic industry, the concentration ratio principle of economics, the Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger, and more.

In-depth, offbeat, or thought-provoking features about aspects of SOLE food, from eating locally to farms marketing to methods of food preservation.